NATPE attracts studies, surveys

Research companies use event to sell wares

NATPE doesn’t just attract program buyers and sellers. Research companies often use the event to pitch their latest studies and surveys.

One such report on lifestyle advertising, for example, is being released Tuesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers. It’s called “How to Capitalize on Lifestyle Advertising in a Customer-centric World” and reps of the firm will participate in one or another panel during the three-day bazaar to talk up its findings.

“The most fundamental shift in the history of media usage is upon us,” said Michael Kelley, a partner at PwC. “Today, consumer dialogue is happening in real time, with unprecedented speed and volume, with or without the willing participation of content providers, distributors, advertisers or their agencies. We are experiencing a technology-driven social renaissance that is creating unprecedented opportunities for the advertising industry to execute its core principles in powerful new ways.”

PwC describes Lifestyle Advertising as advertising and messaging that allows advertisers to respond to consumer feedback in an ongoing and interactive way through a continuous dialogue.

The three principles of Lifestyle Advertising are relevance – Advertisers have to understand the issues that are important to customers’ lives and build strategies around them; engagement – Converged media redefines engagement as it combines both brand-level and product-level interactions in the same consumer experience; and trust– To engender trust with the consumer, efforts must be genuine and transparent and companies must act on what they hear when listening to consumers.

As advertisers begin to focus on building relevant, engaging, and trustworthy conversations, they necessarily will shift substantial investment from traditional advertising toward Lifestyle Advertising, the report contends.

“This does not mean the demise of traditional television advertising or traditional newspaper publishers, but rather the emergence or evolution of traditional mediums toward Lifestyle Advertising,” added PwC’s entertainment and media exec Deborah Bothun.